The sample game

The Red Thread 红线

A short, complete visual novel that exercises Novella end to end: a courtship in Lin'an, in English and in Simplified Chinese, with three endings.

The story

The old man under the moon

Lin'an, a river town of the Song dynasty, in spring. Lu Wenjing, a young scholar, is lodging in town to prepare for the imperial examination. Auntie Wang, the town's busiest matchmaker, has decided he will marry Su Qinglan, the tea merchant's daughter, who plays the guqin and has no intention of being matched by anyone.

Over the weeks from the plum blossom to the Lantern Festival, the scholar can win her regard through the old customs of courtship: exchanging verses, choosing a gift, guessing lantern riddles, and at last sending the matchmaker with a proper proposal, or not. The legend of Yue Lao, who ties a red thread between people fated to marry, opens and closes the story.

There are three endings: a betrothal and a wedding; a friendship, in which Qinglan leaves to study music in the capital and writes; and a match made elsewhere, which sends the scholar back to his books.

Character	Role
Su Qinglan 苏清岚	The heroine: witty, musical, independent.
Auntie Wang 王媒婆	The matchmaker: loud, comic, kind underneath.
Xiaotao 小桃	Qinglan's maid and go-between, mischievous.
Master Su 苏老爷	Her father, a stern tea merchant.
Lu Wenjing 陆文景	The player, seen only as a side portrait.
Yue Lao 月老	The old man under the moon.

Watch it

Played through the real controls

Recorded from the engine itself, playing headless through its real controls, so the videos are silent.

The opening movie, naming the scholar, the prologue and the teahouse. 2:01.

The plum grove and its couplets. 1:16.

The Lantern Festival, in Simplified Chinese. 1:31.

Two languages

The same game in Chinese

The whole story is translated into Simplified Chinese, line by line, in the script itself, and the engine's own interface follows. The couplets in the plum grove are real couplets, not translations.

The main menu in English: Start, Load, Preferences, Gallery, Music Room, Achievements, About, Help, Quit — The main menu.

The main menu in Simplified Chinese, titled 红线 — The main menu.

The teahouse, with narration in the dialogue window — The teahouse.

Auntie Wang speaking in Simplified Chinese in the teahouse — The teahouse.

Auntie Wang asks a question, with three answers offered as choices — Auntie Wang's first question.

The same question and choices in Simplified Chinese — Auntie Wang's first question.

Qinglan offers the first line of a couplet, with three ways to finish it — Answering Qinglan's couplet in the plum grove.

The couplet in Chinese: 落花随水去, with three second lines to choose from — Answering Qinglan's couplet in the plum grove.

Scenes

From the market to the wedding

Xiaotao calling out to the scholar in a busy market street — The market, and Xiaotao.

A Qing painting of a lady resting her arms on a qin, under the dialogue window — An event picture: resting the qin, waiting for the moon.

Qinglan at the night festival, with three lanterns to read — The lantern riddles at the festival.

Two silhouettes on the bank watching lanterns float down the river — An event picture: lanterns on the river.

Auntie Wang, Qinglan and Xiaotao in a red wedding hall, with the scholar's side portrait in the dialogue window — The wedding, and the scholar's side portrait.

The End: Tied by Fate, with an achievement notification in the corner — An ending, and its achievement.

Every screen

Built in, and themed

The standard screens come with the engine and take their fonts, colours and frames from the game's theme. Here they are over the prologue, in English and in Chinese.

The save screen: six slots on a page, with page tabs — Save.

The history screen with the prologue's lines — History.

The preferences screen in Simplified Chinese: display, skip, language, text speed and volumes — Preferences, in Chinese.

The achievements screen in Simplified Chinese, one of them hidden — Achievements, in Chinese.

The gallery screen with three locked pictures — Gallery.

The music room with one track heard and the rest locked — Music room.

The about screen for The Red Thread 1.0 — About.

Under the surface

What the game shows of the engine

Feature	Where
A story spread over scripts that merge into one: settings, definitions, then a file per chapter	Every script
Configuration and a full theme as script: fonts for English and Chinese, a nine-patch dialogue window, name tab and choices, interface sounds	The options script
An opening movie, then naming the player	The prologue
A reusable label with parameters, and a centred title card	Every chapter
Expressions changed as characters speak, and a side portrait for the player	Throughout
Animated transforms with parameters, and named transitions	Every scene
A quiz written with `menu set` inside a `while`, so each lantern is read once	The Lantern Festival
A `run fortune` command that draws from the story's random generator, so rollback cannot reroll it	The Lantern Festival
Variables that decide the ending, and an NVL-page letter	The endings
Persistent data, a gallery, a music room and achievements, one hidden and one for seeing every ending	The endings
A complete Simplified Chinese translation keyed by explicit line ids, with string tables for names, choices and titles	The translation script

The Red Thread's art, music and fonts are stand-ins, most of them by other authors; each one seen on this site is named with its licence on the Credits page.